<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'Would my father kill the cat just to get back at our mother?',
	'body' => <<<END
<p>
	Current countdowns:
</p>
<ul>
	<li>15 unfinished weblog entries in <a href="/en/weblog/2016/07-July/">July</a></li>
	<li>15 days until my old domain registrar can no longer counter my charge dispute</li>
</ul>
<p>
	<a href="/en/domains/ystyst.mp.xhtml"><code>//ystyst.mp.</code></a> has now expired.
</p>
<p>
	Alyssa, Cyrus, Vanessa, our mother, and I spent much of the day running errands.
	When we returned, we received bad news.
	According to our father, the cat that used to belong to Alyssa but now belongs to our father, died in the night.
	Apparently, the cat made a gurgling noise at about six this morning, and when our father went to check on it, the cat was no longer moving.
	Vanessa is distraught, as they really loved that cat.
	Cyrus is upset because there&apos;s nothing that they can do to help Vanessa with this grief.
	Our mother thinks that our father deliberately killed the cat.
	They&apos;ve always had a low oppinion of ouur father, and thinks that this is the kind of thing that they&apos;d do.
	It&apos;s also pretty suspicious that the cat had been healthy, happy, and affectionate yesterday.
	More than that though, today&apos;s date is an important anniversary for our mother.
	As I personally think that anniversaries are arbitrary and stupid, I won&apos;t elaborate on what type of anniversary it is, but it&apos;s strange that of all days, this would be the one on which the cat would die.
	Our father attempted to message Vanessa about the cat&apos;s demise this morning, but Vanessa didn&apos;t get the message.
	After we arrived home, our father caught Vanessa and let them know.
	As Cyrus, Alyssa, and I were discussing the situation, Cyrus checked their messages and had received a similar message from our father.
	According to our mother, our father was probably trying to spoil Vanessa&apos;s (and Cyrus&apos;) day, thus spoiling our mother&apos;s day.
	Maybe our mother&apos;s been right about our father all along ...
	I thought that our mother just couldn&apos;t see past their own hatred of them, but there may actually be a lot of truth to what they&apos;ve been saying.
</p>
<p>
	As we discussed whether our father had actually done this or not, several interesting points were brought up.
	Alyssa asked why now.
	This anniversary happens every year, so why would our father snap on this particular year and not before? My guess is that this is about the visitation schedule.
	Our father tried to cheat the visitation schedule.
	They used the we&apos;re-not-in-Springfield version through the summer, despite our being in Springfield for most of the summer, due to that schedule including more visitation time during summer months.
	Once summer ended though, they tried to flip back to the we&apos;re-in-Springfield schedule, due to that schedule including more visitation time in non-summer months.
	My mother told my father that that was <strong>*not*</strong> happening, and that we&apos;re only here as a transitional period.
	Once we have a house, we&apos;re out of here, so my mother doesn&apos;t consider us to be &quot;living in Springfield&quot;.
	I think that if our father really did kill the cat, it was in retaliation for this.
	More points toward our father trying to ruin this anniversary as well.
	They could have waited until tomorrow to deliver the bad news of the cat&apos;s untimely demise, but instead, they made sure to try to tell Vanessa and Cyrus at the beginning of today.
	If they <strong>*had*</strong> waited until tomorrow, it would have almost certainly guaranteed that they were innocent, at least in my eyes.
	Also, our father insisted on burying the cat today.
	They forced Vanessa to choose between missing an important day for our mother or missing the burial of the cat that Vanessa loved.
	There&apos;s no good excuse for that, and I can&apos;t think of why our father would do that if not deliberately trying to ruin the anniversary.
	Our mother briefly considered the possibility that the cat died because it choked on a hairball, but I doubt that they gave that thought much consideration.
	All signs point toward the cat being deliberately offed.
</p>
<p>
	After dealing with feelings a bit, we went on our planned hike, though as much time had been lost, we had to do that somewhere other than where we&apos;d planned.
	I forget the name of the place that we were planning to go, but we instead hiked through the orchards and forest of Doris Ranch.
	During this time, our mother mentioned their new Apple device that they think that they&apos;re getting gratis.
	However, it&apos;s not gratis at all.
	First, they have to turn in their old Apple device once the new one arrives.
	Second, they had to sign a new two-year agreement with their evil carrier.
	Third, the carrier charges a higher rate for users on-contract.
	This is as they should, as otherwise, they&apos;re charging off-contract customers for devices that they&apos;re not getting.
	However, it means that this device very much does have a price tag, not only in freedom, but in actual dollars.
	If I remember correctly, their carrier charges \$20 $a[USD] extra per month to be on a contract, so the device will cost about \$480 $a[USD] plus the value of the old Apple device.
	Honestly, I can&apos;t see how my mother can possibly think that this device is gratis.
	Apple devices are really going downhill, too.
	This new one doesn&apos;t even have a basic headphone jack.
	I can&apos;t imagine not being able to listen to my music using real headphones connected to my mobile.
	Apple&apos;s trying to push their new wireless earbuds, but there&apos;s a couple problems with them and they&apos;re both mentioned right in the phrase &quot;wireless earbuds&quot;.
	I can&apos;t stand earbuds myself.
	I don&apos;t like sounds deep in my ear, so I much prefer basic headphones.
	Assuming I could even use wireless headphones, which I can&apos;t because Replicant doesn&apos;t support bluetooth, I wouldn&apos;t mind a pair.
	However, unlike wireless headphones, wireless earbuds are tiny.
	Without the cord to keep them from getting lost, they no doubt <strong>*will*</strong> go missing at some point.
	Wired earbuds are fine for many people, but wireless earbuds are an idiotic invention.
</p>
<p>
	I set aside this day for my mother, so I didn&apos;t expect to get any schoolwork done.
	However, I did get the three essays graded that I was supposed to grade this week, so the day wasn&apos;t as unproductive as I thought that it would be.
</p>
END
);
